choke me out (on primrose and peonies)
by midnightluck
Summary: Some people have a predisposition to losing their breath when they lose their hearts: a hanahaki collection.


_Ya'll fair warning if you're gonna follow this collection of unconnected hanahaki ficlets: it's not called hana_happy.

_so, uh...someone asked if amnesia cured hanahaki?_

* * *

"Hey, you okay?"

Sabo stares at his palm and then looks up. "I'm fine," he says, and spits to the side. "You find anything?"

"Nah," Ace says, swinging down out of the tree and hitting the ground in a crouch. "Tracked the birds; didn't find nothin'."

"Anything," he corrects absently, then squints up at the sun. "Time to head back, then?"

"Gonna hafta," Ace says, looking that way too. "We prolly got time enough."

"Yeah," Sabo agrees, then takes a step forward. Then one more, and a third before Ace starts moving and Sabo leans forward and takes off even before he gets out, "Race ya!"

Ace's howl of "Unfair!" echoes behind him as he puts his head down and runs pellmell into the forest. He doesn't have to be fair, he has to win, and he's already gasping for breath as he twists around the big rock that separates the town from the forest, Ace right on his heels.

Ace overtakes him at the last and it's tanned fingers that slap the door of the Party Bar. "Ha!" Ace crows, and Sabo frowns at him and tries to catch his breath. "I won!"

"Yeah, yeah," Sabo grumbles, then shoves past him to push open the door. "Luffy! Luffy, you here?"

"Sabo!" Luffy's voice floats back. "Ace! You came!"

"Course we did," Ace says, swaggering in. "Didn't doubt us, didja?"

"No!" Luffy protests, throwing his arm forward. It extends long past where it should have stopped and wraps around Ace, pulling him forward.

Ace goes, laughing, and Sabo hops up onto a stool at the bar. "Thank you for watching him," he says, and Makino smiles.

"It's my pleasure," She says, turning around to the stove. "Pull up a chair, boys. There's some food left if you're hungry."

"Thanks!" Ace says, and Sabo echoes him and muffles a cough in his clenched hand.

One cough turns into two, though, and Makino sets a glass of water in front of him as Ace pats his back.

"Thanks," Sabo says when he can breathe again, and takes a sip of the water.

The cold liquid hits his throat and instead of soothing the tickle, it becomes razorblades that stick and poke as he coughs, and he coughs and coughs and coughs.

"You sure you're okay?" Ace says, one hand on his shoulder. "That sounds nasty."

Sabo hunches forward, coughing into his hands until he can breathe and then propping himself on the bar and wheezing, "Just caught a summer cold. It'll pass."

"It will?" Luffy asks, leaning in to peer directly into Sabo's face. "You'll be okay?"

Sabo takes a deep breath, cuts his eyes to Ace, and then meets Luffy's gaze. "I'll be fine," he says. "I promise."

Luffy stares a second longer and then grins widely. "Okay! If you say so!"

Sabo wipes his hands on his pants and then pats Luffy on the head. "Yeah," he says.

"Hey! Is there more meat!?"

Ace meets Sabo's eyes again and huffs a laugh. "Just put it on our tab, yeah?"

Sabo pushes the glass of water forward across the bar and Makino takes it and uses a rag to wipe off the bar and glass. "Yeah," Sabo says, and manages a crooked smile.

Luffy cheers and bounces closer to the counter, and Ace leans in to say quietly, "You sure you're okay, right?"

"Yeah," Sabo says, and Makino freezes behind the bar. He meets her gaze over Ace's shoulder and there's petals on her rag and grief in her eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure."

* * *

"You don't have to lie, you know," Ace says, leaning back on his hands.

"I don't lie," Sabo lies, glancing sideways at him.

Ace snorts and doesn't say anything. He just waits, and sure enough, the clouds haven't drifted halfway across the clearing when the tickle in Sabo's throat creeps up and fills his mouth with the burning itch of a pending cough.

He bites it back as long as he can, but he has to cough eventually, into cupped hands. Warm fingers wrap around his wrists and tug his hands down even as he looks up into Ace's eyes.

"You don't have to lie," Ace repeats. "This sickness, it's-"

Sabo catches his breath, waiting. It's obvious, is what this sickness is, and it's embarrassing. There's only one possible cause, after all. It's needy and dramatic and likely to ruin the only escape Sabo has left in this world, and it's unnecessary, and-

"It's not getting better," Ace says, staring down at the limp globs of parti-colored petal goop in Sabo's hands.

Sabo closes his eyes and doesn't pull away. "No," he says, and waits.

"It's getting worse. You're coughing longer and more often."

"Yeah."

Ace inspects the petals, turning one of Sabo's hands this way and that. "These are flower petals," he says, and Sabo stops breathing.

Ace flicks his eyes up and says, "Is it some kind of allergy?" and Sabo sighs explosively.

"No, it's-well, yeah, I guess. Something like that."

"So you know what it is?"

"Yeah," Sabo admits, and curls his fists closed. "It's okay, Ace; don't worry about it. It'll pass."

"You don't have to lie," Ace repeats, and Sabo quirks a small, crooked grin.

"It'll pass soon," he says, ignoring the growing urge to cough and collapsing back onto the grass. "Hey, where's Luffy?"

"Sent him to find treasure," Ace says, and a _whumph_ from the side tells Sabo Ace is laying flat too. "He wouldn't shut up about a telescope or something? Told him if he wanted it, he had to find one."

Sabo hums, letting time pass, and then says, "There's probably one in the piles."

"Probably," Ace agrees.

There's an even longer break where they both wait for the other to cave to the inevitable, and it's Sabo who gives in first. "Wanna go look for one?"

"Yeah, all right," Ace agrees and neither move.

It's peaceful, laying there like that and watching the clouds blow by, and Sabo doesn't move until it's that or cough, and then he flips over with a groan and scrambles to his feet. "Let's go then," he says, offering a hand to Ace.

Ace makes unhappy grumble noises as well but lets Sabo pull him upright, and they meander out towards the Terminal.

Sabo does find a telescope, in the end, but not before his father finds him. He swallows down fear and flower petals and makes his decision, and he trails his father back to town with heavy feet and a heavier heart. He doesn't look back, not even once, because he doesn't want that sight in his memories, not Luffy crying or Ace glaring after him-

He nearly doubles over with the force of the coughs this time. It's sudden and violent and rips out his chest like a tide, and he hacks and spits up enough petals to choke on.

The funny thing is, Sabo thinks, is that he had thought nothing else could go wrong, but when he looks up, wiping his mouth on the back of one hand, his father's expression tells him he's mistaken.

"Is that what I think it is?" Outlook Senior demands, and Sabo shuts his mouth. "Did you catch _feelings?"_

He says it like _cancer_, and it may as well be, Sabo thinks, watching and keeping his mouth shut. He can survive this, he can survive anything as long as his brothers are safe-

"This may actually be the best possible path," his father muses, and Sabo's heart kicks up as he blinks and thinks, trying to figure out why his father's wearing his Victorious Business Acquisition face. How could this-

"Come along, son," Outlook Senior says, clamping one hand onto Sabo's shoulder and steering him forward. "We'll set up an appointment for as soon as possible and the surgery soon after. Then you'll be over this nonsense-"

Sabo's ears stop along with his heart even as his feet move on autopilot. He knows what this is and what it means and that it'll kill him slowly and painfully, but it's _his_ and he won't let them cut out his flowers or his lungs or his heart.

Well, that makes his decision easy, really; he needs to get out of here, and he's on a deadline.

He swallows down the lingering taste of chlorophyll and starts making plans.

* * *

He wakes up, gasping, breathing deeply and cleanly, and something in his mind whispers _wrong_.

"What-" he wheezes, and there's a hand pushing him back down.

"Easy, kid," says a deep voice. "You almost drowned."

Drowned-yes, that makes sense, explains the phantom feeling of constriction around lungs working overtime.

"Did I-" he starts, then coughs. He coughs for a long time, spitting out water and gunk and salt. It's nasty and leaves his mouth sour and faintly green, and he feels unclean when he's done.

"Don't push it, kid," the voice says. "You'll heal. You know where you are?"

He shakes his head because opening his mouth seems like too much right now, but he doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know why he would have drowned, he doesn't know-

"Who," he croaks out, and then coughs again. "Who are you? Who am I?"

There's a long moment of silence as his pulse beats in his ears and then the stranger who rescued him sighs. "You're gonna be fine," the voice promises. "We'll find your family-"

"No!"

A longer pause, and he coughs up more goo. "No," he says when he can breathe again, "please, no, I can't go back-"

A discussion happens over his head while he coughs up half an ocean, at least, and then dry heaves until not even bile comes up. His fate is decided somewhere over his head during this process and he doesn't even notice.

It works out, though, and Dragon gives him a purpose, a cause, and a home. He gives Sabo a new start and an old top hat, and Sabo wears gloves these days, and always carries a handkerchief, just in case.

He still doesn't like flowers; there's something about the smell that paints a bright, bitter flavor across his tongue and makes him breathe shallower. It's probably an allergy or something; he gets minor attacks sometimes.

He can't figure out the trigger because it's happened out at sea, staring up at the clouds, with no plants in sight. He'll just feel the squeeze in his chest, the tickle in his throat, and the buildup behind his eyes, and the taste will flood his mouth again.

It's manageable, though, and not dangerous, not really. It doesn't stop him from climbing the ranks and becoming the one of the youngest officers in the Revolutionary Army.

He's still wary, though, so he keeps a weather eye on a small potted plant on the corner of a desk, years later, while waiting on his partner.

"Hey," she says, stepping out of the debriefing room. "New mission."

"Yeah?" he says, letting the chair touch down again. It seems to be a straightforward mission, a bit of stealth and stealing, and he scans the folder and lets himself grin. "This'll be a breeze," he says then, and Koala huffs and rolls her eyes.

"Don't cause trouble this time, okay?"

"Never do," he says, grinning, and she sighs.

"You don't have to lie, Sabo," she says, and it may be the set of her chin or the angle of her mouth or the way she says it, but for a second Sabo could swear he hears it echo.

There's a tickle in the back of his throat and he clears it once, closing his eyes for just a second. When he opens them again, warm brown eyes blink into his from far too close and there's strong fingers wrapped around his wrist. "You sure you're okay?" Koala asks, and Sabo coughs.

"Yeah," he says, and coughs again, once, lightly. "Don't worry, it'll pass."

It always does.


End file.
